The Ceremony of Innocence
by ncfan
Summary: There's a war coming, and the first casualty will be their innocence. The Konoha 11.


Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

* * *

The first death in any war is the death of innocence.

There's a war coming, and the Rookie Nine and Team Gai are going to be in for a shock.

.x.X.x.

The village was massacred, that much was clear. The little border village had been burned to its foundations, charred frames of buildings being the only sign that there was ever anything there.

The soles of Shikamaru's sandals crunched against fallen wood and crushed wheat as Team Ten moved warily through the center street. Ino had tanto drawn; Choji was on high alert.

Their breath, unnaturally loud and harsh, echoed through the burned-out hamlet as the adolescents traversed the high street, looking for survivors or anything that could tell them where the attackers had gone.

The golden leaves of fall crinkled and fell and blew in the wind across them, a tribute to a dying age that was falling to dust before their very eyes, but they didn't see. The village was disturbingly empty and silent, not so much as a door swinging on its rusty hinges to break the oppressive silence.

It was Ino who first spotted it. A black shape lying in a doorway; they ran towards it.

It was a body, charred beyond recognition. The faint hints of hair showed to have maybe been an orange-red at some point; the shriveled lips were pulled back in a ghastly caricature of a scream, blackened teeth exposed. The body was disintegrating as they watched.

Strangely, it was Choji who started crying. He only sniffled a little bit, pushing furiously at his eyes. Ino's eyes burned with a strange, fierce light that Shikamaru had never seen there before, a light that frightened him just a little bit. Shikamaru himself just felt numb, suddenly wishing for the comforts of his clan's compound.

"Shikamaru." It was Ino who spoke, her voice hard and sharp as the blade of her tanto. "Where are the others?"

He shook his head, glad to be speaking and filling up the screamingly empty moments. "Taken for slave labor, most likely; the Rock tend to do that."

She nodded, standing up. Ino's mouth was clenched in a fierce, twisted line as she told Choji, sharply, "Stop crying! She sure can't hear you anymore." Shikamaru didn't ask how Ino had known the victim was a she.

They continued walking, performing the same ritual with every village they found; death, cry, repeat.

.x.X.x.

Hinata fell against the tree gasping, raising a palm of healing chakra towards her ripped and bleeding arms.

Kiba and Shino huddled nearby, both of their faces twin visages of stone. Kiba stroked the whimpering Akamaru, the great hound's fur coated in blood.

The air stank of blood; the dark forest twitched with the aftermath of a battle that in the minds of the three chunin was still going on; the dull, low buzz of kikai made Hinata's heart beat a little too quickly. Shadows of deep sunset were rapidly falling over the forest.

Kiba snarled at the memory of a Sound nin trying to tear into the flesh of his canine familiar; he smirked with savage joy at the recollection of ripping the enemy's throat out with his teeth. His mouth still dripped barbaric sanguine blood, slow and dribbling, unwilling to let old thoughts die.

Shino's face darkened at the thought of the Sound nin's threats, of Hinata's short, sharp scream, a mixture of fear and rage at the kunai that lodged itself in the flesh of her arm. His fists clenched as he thought of the enemy who died screaming, eaten from the inside out by waves upon waves of kikai, of the bodies that were now only bare bones. His kikai were fat and drunk on blood.

Hinata flinched as she remembered the call of battle, and shuddered as she remembered the strange, ferocious _happiness_ that had overwhelmed her and flooded her sight as she killed man after man, being unable to distinguish the active from the wounded.

She stared up at the falcon circling overhead, and wondered if she would ever be free.

.x.X.x.

It was over. That much Lee was sure of.

The plain was still in anarchy, even with the ghostly pall setting over it. Even with the bank of fog rolling in and the guttering smoke pyres flying upwards, he still saw chaos.

Tenten and Neji were somewhere nearby; Tenten had lost a great deal of blood during the battle, and Neji refused to leave her side until she was back to herself again.

Lee hadn't known that anyone could fight as desperately as his enemies had. They were honorable fighters, Lee had thought, as honorable as any shinobi could be, to the extent that they fought to the last man and they never let their weakness overwhelm them except at the door of Death.

The Leaf, however, weren't quite so principled.

The area had been flooded with chlorine gas twelve hours prior. It was standard practice when two conditions were met: a large enemy force and a strong wind. There had already been bodies on the ground when the fight began, and still more were dying, clawing at the air they were being denied by the fluid growing in their lungs, their eyes rolling back in their heads as they gurgled helplessly and died, their bodies having turned against them, as if they were dying in a sea of blood.

When a Leaf chunin beside him took a kunai to the chest, his female companion wrenched the kunai out, and drew it across his throat.

Lee didn't know why she had done that. And in reality, he didn't want to find out.

.x.X.x.

The dense forest twisted and sighed as the dead decayed and mortified and the dying writhed and screamed, their chakra coils twisted beyond recognition, their skin burned a glittering crimson red and ominous onyx.

Naruto wasn't in much better condition; he vomited blood and bile, as harsh, guttering sobs wrenched themselves from his lips and tainted the air with their saline feel. The whisker marks on his cheeks were like streaks of charcoal; his eyes were scarlet with the Kyuubi's rage and his own tears.

Sakura rubbed ginger, soothing circles on his back, unable to do anything else, as she stared pale and white-lipped at her friend.

She barely knew him at all, Sakura decided; if she had known him, she would have known that Naruto was capable of the atrocity behind and all around them.

She wondered if Sasuke would have survived their last encounter, if Naruto had unleashed upon them the horrors that the Rock nin had just suffered. She doubted it.

Sakura's stomach _burned_ as her soul keened for what her friend had lost, and for what he was still losing. All the while, the sense of unity they had once had collapsed and fell apart, never to rise from any ashes.

.x.X.x.

The first casualty in any war is the death that the soldiers suffer, the little deaths in their eyes and their hearts.

After that, the death of flesh is nothing.

* * *

_Turning and turning in the widening gyre  
The falcon can not hear the falconer;  
Things fall apart; the center can not hold;  
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,  
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere  
The ceremony of innocence is drowned_

—_The Second Coming_ by William Butler Yeats

* * *

I think I somehow turned this into a political message. Not quite sure how, though.


End file.
